Kempten issued this zinc notgeld piece in 1917 as wartime metal requisitions stripped German municipalities of their copper and nickel stocks. The imperial government had been systematically pulling bronze and nickel coinage from circulation since 1915, leaving smaller cities scrambling to produce emergency issues of their own. Zinc was the pragmatic fallback — abundant, cheap, and largely unwanted by the war machine.
The Funck reference places this among the better-documented Bavarian municipal issues of the period.
Kempten issued this zinc notgeld piece in 1917 as wartime metal requisitions stripped German municipalities of their copper and nickel stocks. The imperial government had been systematically pulling bronze and nickel coinage from circulation since 1915, leaving smaller cities scrambling to produce emergency issues of their own. Zinc was the pragmatic fallback — abundant, cheap, and largely unwanted by the war machine.
The Funck reference places this among the better-documented Bavarian municipal issues of the period.